Man Made Monsters

October 1, 2022

Gr 8 Up-Chilling stories tell about generations of a Cherokee family's encounters with the supernatural and violence. Beginning on the Trail of Tears, when Ama is turned into the Undead, and continuing through 2039, the stories of Ama's various family members and descendants are told. Each chapter can be read as a standalone short story; the entries are tied together by characters from one story appearing in later ones. Ama is featured in many of the chapters, appearing to help and guide her current family members through various trials and tribulations. The stories from the 1800s are odes to European horror. In the 1900s, ghosts, werewolves, and revenge are the main topics, and during the 2000s, most of the characters are dealing with violence-dating, gun, and domestic. Traumatic events are primarily alluded to, then described in detail. Most chapters end without a clear understanding of what happened to the various characters. The narrative incorporates Cherokee history, words, and customs. One section focuses on Deer Woman, a Cherokee myth, who avenges women and children. The themes throughout are family love and tribal ties. Each chapter begins with the name of a family member, date of the event, and a white illustration on a black background. Family trees are provided at the beginning, and a glossary of Cherokee words written in English and in Cherokee syllabary are provided at the end. VERDICT Full of familiar tropes and new ideas, these stories are the right balance of suspense without too much horror. A strong first purchase.-Tamara Saarinen

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Starred review from July 1, 2022
A chilling story collection following a sprawling Cherokee family through many generations. Starting with Ama Wilson in 1839 and ending in 2039, this spooky speculative assortment features stories from times historical, present, and yet to come. Although each of Cherokee author Rogers' stories could stand alone (and versions of some were previously published individually), placing them in chronological order and thus in dialogue with each other results in a thematically richer read and allows readers the delight of tracing the family trees in the frontmatter to situate the characters in relation to other protagonists. Ama's opening story, set during a forcible relocation to Indian Territory, sets the tone: Ama thinks her family's main worries are Texas Rangers and disease; she also faces a supernatural nightmare. The tight focus on families and the specificity of their experiences, along with the matter-of-fact text, directly address the way persecution of the Cherokee Nation morphs over the decades. Rogers' grounded, smooth writing style--juggling first-, third-, and even second-person points of view--makes magical elements (from milder hauntings to monsters like vampires, werewolves, and zombies) as threatening as human villains. The stakes remain high: The short story format means any character one meets could later die. Exquisite white-on-black line art from Cherokee artist Edwards sets the eerie mood. The use of the Noto Sans Cherokee typeface and Edwards' hand-drawn Cherokee syllabary beautifully integrates written language into the book's design. A creepy and artful exploration of a haunting heritage. (glossary) (Horror. 12-adult)

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Starred review from August 1, 2022
Grades 10-12 *Starred Review* At the start of Rogers' startling new collection is an epigraph from an academic essay titled "Reading History: Cherokee History Through a Cherokee Lens" that examines what the Cherokee language and perspective reveal about past and intergenerational trauma and its impact on present-day health and social concerns.At once precisely contained and wildly expansive, this is a collection that doesn't push boundaries so much as claw at them and then pull back. A pair of family trees, in stark white typeface against black paper, set the scope for the stories that follow. Each brief tale--some previously published elsewhere, many original---is centered around a different member of this extended family. The first, Ama Wilson, travels a lonely Texas road with her mother and siblings in 1839, only to run afoul of monsters. The last, Charlotte Henry, escapes a horde of zombies and a violent father in 2039.In the two centuries between, the stories unfold chronologically. The Wilsons, a Cherokee family in the American South, are at the the heart of each. The stories vary in length and in tone--some venture into the psyche of a particular character, some weave stories that often have the feel of a tall tale or family legend, some are mere snapshots, moments that links other stories, other family members, together. Characters slip in and out of each other's histories, arriving to speak, vanishing again.On its face, this is about what haunts: the stories examine the horrors of life and the horrors beyond it. In 1945, Rabbit Wilson sees a strange specter running with his friends as he waits for his brother to return from the war and absentmindedly dreads his own journey to boarding school. In 1968, Gina Wilson begins a sweet but doomed romance with the goat boy she dubs Matt, whose appearance terrifies her neighbors. In 1979, Audrey and her sister shelter from a snowstorm in their dead cousin's car, only to meet a ghost. In 2019, Laura Wilson's boyfriend hits her, so her brother builds her a replacement boy online. Walela King Preston's father dies in an accident in 2029, the same time an alien crash-lands in her pool, and it takes all the broken pieces left of her family to help.Ama, the family and the collection's matriarch, ends her own story having died at 16 at the teeth of a blood-sucking creature (vampiric, though that word is not used in her story). When she rises again, she follows a road toward death or family, declaring, "I became merciless, too." And yet, deathless, she is the character who turns up the most in the subsequent stories, not to terrorize but to offer a guiding hand or a reassuring presence, to help her family through the horrors that their present and collective pasts have brought. And while this is undoubtedly a horror collection, it finds its roots and its balance in that warm core of family.If, in fantasy, magic so often has consequences, in horror, the magic is the consequence: monsters are begotten in violence, in trauma, in sorrow. For the Wilsons and their relatives, those consequences reach through generations. Much of the time, the monsters in these pages don't show their faces, and they aren't given names. They are also, far more often than not, less monstrous than the harshest human realities that Rogers' created family stares directly in the face. And they are less powerful than the quiet ways in which a family and a community can endure.Both Rogers and illustrator Edwards, whose art precedes each story, incorporate Cherokee words into their work, threading the language into the bones of the collection. The final product will leave readers--adults as well as teens--unsettled, feeling...

Starred review from August 22, 2022
Spanning generations, Rogers (Mary and the Trail of Tears) recounts the past, present, and future trials and tribulations of one Cherokee family in this spine-tingling horror collection. Though the stories presented can stand alone, each tale, arranged in chronological order, follows members of the Wilson family as they navigate myriad supernatural and real-life terrors. Opening the volume is “An Old-Fashioned Girl,” in which 16-year-old Ama Wilson is turned into a vampire while she and her family flee from Texas Rangers in 1839. Mythical creatures such as ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and even aliens abound, but most threatening are monsterlike men who kidnap, abuse, and murder Native women. Striking white line art on black backgrounds by Cherokee artist Edwards introduce each story, containing the tribe’s syllabary, adding to the haunting atmosphere, and synthesizing handwritten language with stunning visuals. While Rogers expertly crafts gripping grisly horror elements and cataclysmic paranormal phenomena via a deep understanding and appreciation for her Cherokee ancestry, the narrative’s strength lies in its powerful prose and thematic core: “How different were zombies from the soldiers and settlers who wanted our land?” Fresh, crisply written text, which alternates between first-, second-, and third-person tellings, artfully tackles themes of colonialism and its effects on entire generations, for a simultaneously frightening and enthralling read. A glossary and extensive family tree are included. Ages 12–up. Agent: Emily Sylvan Kim, Prospect Agency.

Starred review from November 1, 2022
In her debut YA novel, Cherokee writer Rogers distills two centuries of realistic intergenerational trauma into eighteen short horror stories linked by family connections. From the first story, set in 1839, to the last, set in 2039, the reader comes to know members of one family, forced out of their ancestral lands to the Cherokee Nation and dispersed further as "Urban Indians." Each story stands on its own but also reflects the interconnectedness of Cherokee families and culture. A family tree shows how characters are related, and transliterated words in Tsalagi center the Cherokee worldview. Edwards's (Cherokee) striking white-on-black graphic art at the start of each story incorporates symbols from the Cherokee syllabary. Rogers writes about vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, sea monsters, humanoids, aliens, skillies, the Deer Woman, and the Lake Worth Monster (a "Goat Man"), but the real horrors here are genocide and cultural annihilation, domestic violence and sexual assault, school shootings, medical experimentation, pandemics, and ecological catastrophes. "Treaties were broken, and we were chased by human monsters, monsters who lived on blood and sorrow." Many of these stories sound as if they were passed down as family histories. It may read like speculative fiction, but it feels like truth. Lara K. Aase

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2022
In her debut YA novel, Cherokee writer Rogers distills two centuries of realistic intergenerational trauma into eighteen short horror stories linked by family connections. From the first story, set in 1839, to the last, set in 2039, the reader comes to know members of one family, forced out of their ancestral lands to the Cherokee Nation and dispersed further as "Urban Indians." Each story stands on its own but also reflects the interconnectedness of Cherokee families and culture. A family tree shows how characters are related, and transliterated words in Tsalagi center the Cherokee worldview. Edwards's (Cherokee) striking white-on-black graphic art at the start of each story incorporates symbols from the Cherokee syllabary. Rogers writes about vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, sea monsters, humanoids, aliens, skillies, the Deer Woman, and the Lake Worth Monster (a "Goat Man"), but the real horrors here are genocide and cultural annihilation, domestic violence and sexual assault, school shootings, medical experimentation, pandemics, and ecological catastrophes. "Treaties were broken, and we were chased by human monsters, monsters who lived on blood and sorrow." Many of these stories sound as if they were passed down as family histories. It may read like speculative fiction, but it feels like truth.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)